Writing Suspense

An important step that is easy to skip when writing suspense is taking the time to picture the details of the location. It is easy to get so into the action that the mood is forgotten. Often times, writers are unsure how to even create a mood or atmosphere. Where do you even start? You start with the location. You need to understand the location that you are working with. This includes the layout of a room, the weather, lighting, sounds. Everything that makes this location what it is needs to be told. The details create the mood. That being said, you do not want to get carried away with how many details you include to a point at which you chain the imagination of the reader, to where there are no blanks for the reader to fill in. Figure out what details about the location are important to the situation at hand. If there is a gunfight and it is raining, you might want to consider the rain pouring down on a person's head and getting into their eyes, thus blurring their vision. The ground will  be slicker and the sound of rain will be drowning out the sound of an attacker's approach. Think long and hard about the location your scene of suspense is taking place in because the atmosphere of that scene is dependent on the details of that location. This is why I suggest doing what I am doing for a short story I am working on right now. I am drawing the layout of the coffee house that the entirety of my short story is taking place in. I am going to spend time in multiple coffee houses to write down as many details as I can find. After that, I create a list of all the important actions of the plot of my short story and I place them alongside my list of details about the coffee house and the drawing of the coffee house. I then select the details of the coffee shop that play a pertinent role in the actions of the plot. I write the short story with the new list of details at hand. While writing the short story though, I will still look at the details that are not on the new list, so that I can create that atmosphere that you and I are always struggling to create. Without an atmosphere, there will be no suspense.